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Cycle Speedway |
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(North East England) |
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1947 to 2017 |
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1950a |
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1950b |
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Two heats with contrasting fortunes for the
Tyneside team's 1950 visit to London - In the first photo George
Moody attempts an inside pass on his opponent but comes to grief.
Fortunately, he did not try to go round the outside, as he could
have taken out several of the crowd, given the proximity of the
spectators to the action and the single strand of rope holding
them back. In the second photo the home pair look good for a 4-2
or at least a 3-3, but the visiting pair of Dobson and Cooper came
through to relegate both for a Newcastle 5-1.
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Introduction
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Welcome to the Newcastle Cycle Speedway website. Cycle speedway was born after the end of World War 2.
The motorised version of speedway was
huge at this time, Newcastle's Brough Park drew thousands of spectators
every week and many young men were keen to emulate their
dirt track heroes on their bicycles.
Many cities had been bombed during the war, and there was ample space to
race on bicycles against your friends. Within a short time in the late
1940s and early 1950s cycle speedway tracks were built, some
had concrete starting areas and rising starting tapes, teams were formed
and leagues were started. |
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In Newcastle and surrounding areas, various tracks were built and many
teams existed. We know of local cycle speedway tracks including Bensham Broadsiders
(Gateshead), Brough Park
Eagles, Byker Red Stars, Seaton Delaval, Team Valley, Wallsend and
Newcastle Harts (also Byker). |
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We cannot agree just when cycle speedway started in the Newcastle
area. Our earliest confirmed date
is September 1949, we do not know when the sport died out. We can assume
it would have been around 1951 when Brough Park Speedway closed down and
there was no conventional speedway in Newcastle until 1961. |
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1949
The Beginning
In Newcastle |
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We think the above photo was taken on
26th September 1949 when a Newcastle team entertained a side from
Edinburgh at a track at the top of the Fossway about 500 yards
from Brough Park. Were you there or was a relation of yours
there? If you have any information about this event or
anything about cycle speedway in the north east please email me
Keith
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| Micky Dobson and Keith Dyer 1968 riding for Newcastle Vikings at Eastfield
Avenue in the East End of Newcastle in the 1960s |
Keith Dyer is the "owner" of this cycle speedway
website.
If you have photographs or memories of the sport to share with us via this
website, please email me
Keith
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| Keith Dyer RIP |
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Keith
DYER of
Chapel House formerly of Walkergate. Passed peacefully at home with
his family by his side on the 11th April 2022, aged 73 years,
Dearly loved husband of Marilyn, Much love dad of Lee and
daughter-in-law Mandy, Adored grandad of Nicole, Charlotte and
James, and a special great grandad of Carter. Keith will be
sadly missed by all his family and friends. Would friends
please meet for service and cremation at the West Road
Crematorium, Newcastle on Thursday 28th April 2022 at 12:00
noon. Family flowers only please, a retiring collection will
be taken at the end of service in aid of the Newcastle
Speedway. All are welcome afterwards to Newburn Memorial Club.
All enquiries to Clark Pearson Funeral Directors, 2 Baroness
Drive, Denton Burn, NE15 7AT. Tel: (0191) 274 4373.
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| John Skinner says: I did the website as
a favour for my friend Keith. I am not a cycle speedway fan so I
am looking for someone to take over ownership of the website. I
would be happy to keep up the admin if you cannot do it yourself.
If you are interested send me an email and I will answer your
questions and explain what is involved. |
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| South Shields' Les Gustafson Comments re
Keith Dyer |
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Les
Gustafson says: Hi John,
I sent this to the 33-18 Cycle
Speedway site..I don't know if they'll include it sometime. They
haven't done yet. I still don't know how I saw neither your
mention of Keith's passing or the brief one on '33-18', until very
recently and by chance.
Did anyone contact you about the site
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Les |
| John says: No Les no-one has contacted
me about ownership of the website since Keith died. I will
keep it going for a while but ultimately without a sponsor the
site's days are numbered! |
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| Les' piece about Keith:- |
Earlier this year you posted a backdated obituary of Edmund Hall,
a pioneer of the sport on Tyneside in the immediate post-war
years, and - more recently - one for Keith Dyer, an important
figure in the area in the mid-60s and beyond. Sadly, Keith passed
away at a comparatively early age, given that his contemporaries
Terry Kirkup and Frank Auffret have still been taking to the track
in Vets events, although Keith's participation in recent years was
limited more to officiating from the centre green.
The photographs in the attachment are from 1965, at
Moorland Park, the Newcastle club's original tiny track - 33
seconds for four laps, and narrow - so given the extravagant
handlebars displayed by Keith and his team-mates there was
never a chance of getting all four riders in line abreast on
the start line - Keith showing an eye for the camera as he
strains at the tape (a few years later there was a pukka
starting gate, but woe betide anyone colliding with it due to
its solid construction).
The 'lucky coincidence' mentioned in the photo caption was
the publication of Harold Smith's 1966 Cycle Speedway Annual,
in which we found the name and address of a Newcastle club
(Keith and his mates), and this led to a regular Test series
between Newcastle and South Shields, which both teams in their
ignorance thought was a first, and only discovered much later
the extent of activity on post-war Tyneside involving both
locations.
Keith was chuffed to merit a mention in Rod's '50 years of
CS' and in Dave Murphy's 75th Anniversary edition, and he
turned out for Hawbush in some matches when he was working in
London, but his true legacy is the massive website chronicling
the history of the sport in the North East, covering its
origins in the years after World War II and through the
seventy years running up to the revival at Cramlington, and
which led to a phone call I received from a voice not heard
for forty years.
Although entitled 'History of Newcastle CS', it expanded to
include both banks of the Tyne, particularly Wallsend and
South Shields, as well as Middlesbrough, and even the 1950
team at Catterick Army Camp. Keith entertained ideas of
incorporating everything into a publication of his own, but
the site may have to remain as his memento. It was set up and
administered by his fellow Diamonds' enthusiast, John Skinner.
www.newcastlecyclespeedway.co.uk
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John says: Les Gustafson has come to the rescue.
I am happy to be working with him, Keith would have approved of
Les joining me. |
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If you would like to thank Les or supply comments/info then email
him here. Les |
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Newcastle v
South Shields |
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1966 |
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Programme for a second meeting
of the Tyneside teams in May 1966 in Walkergate - the first one, a
couple of weeks earlier, had been a Test Match between Newcastle
and South Shields, but this one was a Club match between
Walkergate Vikings and Trow Lea Mariners. The initial meeting of
the teams had been at the end of April in Shields at their track
by the seafront.
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| Les Gustafson |
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| The only photograph of any sort of
activity on the original rough and ready Trow Lea track ('The
Nest'), venue for the first South Shields v Newcastle Test Match
of 1966, with the sea shore in the background. The blue and white
sailor shirts (team name 'Mariners') served until breastplates
could be afforded. |
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Eastfield Avenue
In Newcastle
1986
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2018 (old) friends reunited fifty years from previous meetings
- L to R, Fred Rothwell (ex-Copley Crusaders, Halifax), Les
Gustafson (ex-Trow Lea Mariners, South Shields), Frank Auffret
(ex-Middlesbrough), Terry Kirkup and Ashie Patterson (both
ex-Fawdon/Newcastle) shown on-track at Leicester during a Vets
Grand Prix event, part of the series organized by Fred and Terry,
which visits tracks across the country from Glasgow to Exeter
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Teenage Terry Kirkup |
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Teenage Terry making his riding debut 50 years previously |
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